Business planning is part of life planning. Running a business is one choice of how you earn your income. Employment is the other choice. Getting a job may appear less risky in the short term but ultimately comes with less control. So which is better?

I am not being a profit of doom here, but experience tells me that life changes and on occasions, quite dramatically. It is not a linear experience from start to finish. Life, including business, is an adventure with many highs and lows, interspersed with comfortable periods of coasting along in neutral.

Over time, people grow, change and want different things. People leave and others enter. Children are born, parents die. Fortune and misfortune are sprinkled throughout.

Whilst you can’t control what happens around you, it is possible to take control of your own attitude and responses to the inevitability of change. You can build a solid financial base which can become your personal (financial and emotional) fortress in tough times.

How do you achieve this? The first step is to take control over the generation and protection of your income! Don’t leave it to chance.

Look at it this way! While ever you work for someone else you are not in control of your own income. Your income could cease next week. Sickness, accident, premature death, theft, fire and natural disasters are just some of the commonplace risks in life.

Whilst ever you fail to take the initiative and put protection in place to guard against life’s more obvious risks, you are leaving your future to chance.

Similarly, whilst ever you rely on a spouse or partner for your food shelter and lifestyle, you are not in control of your life and you future will be determined by someone else. To survive in the long term in this world, you must have your own money and protective measures in place.

The deceptively warm feeling of your present comfort zone does not necessarily equate to your own solid self-built financial fortress.

To many people, business planning for a new enterprise sounds a lot more risky than the security of a good job but, in the long term, it is that self-made, steady income falling into your bank account come rain hail or shine that is the real security.